Puente is 20: finding power in community

The story of Puente is the story of two different organizations that bridged to each other to form a new Puente.

Carol Young-Holt came to the South Coast in 1989, long before Puente. As an early childhood educator, she focused on young children and their families, an underserved population. As she got to know the community through her pre-school classes she saw that the needs of many families were coupled with poverty, lack of transportation and lack of local health and human services. She saw a need to build bridges between volunteers, organizations and human service providers so that together, they could network, share resources and leverage their efforts. Under her leadership the South Coast Collaborative brought together these constituents in 1997. The Collaborative focused on getting an accurate picture of community needs and resources and conducted a survey to gather primary data. The results were published in Looking, Listening, and Dreaming. This profile built the case for more services and paved the way for many initiatives that helped both the community and policymakers to have a greater understanding of the region.

With the completion of the survey and the emergence of task-oriented groups, the work of the Collaborative wound up. The focus moved to hiring staff, seeking funds and providing programs and services for children and families. The school district took the lead, establishing the North Street Community Resource Center with office space at Pescadero Elementary School.

Providing Radical Hospitality to the Stranger

Puente was born 20 years ago in Pescadero with a series of encounters between a farm worker, Gabriel Echeverría, and a pastor, Rev. Wendy Taylor.

Back in 1998, Taylor, the new part-time pastor of Pescadero Community Church, made a point of sitting on the steps of the church and waving to everyone who went by, including the many male farm workers who rode by on their bikes during the day.

Echeverría was one of them. He came to Pescadero in 1989 for work. At the time, he had plenty of friends in town, but none of them were blond gringas. He spoke no English and mostly kept to himself.

“When she first waved at me, I hesitated. There was always the fear of talking with a light-skinned person because there was a concern that it would give you trouble,” acknowledges Echeverría.

But then Rev. Taylor spoke to him – in perfect Spanish. She greeted him and introduced herself. She let him know that she would be sitting on the steps a lot, and that she would enjoy talking to him sometime. She kept her word – she was there the next time he looked for her. Eventually, they formed a bond of trust, and their relationship came to personify the “bridge” between Anglos and Latino immigrants that inspired the name and spirit of Puente.

“The men would hang out near the taqueria, because that was the only place that was safe for them to gather. People didn’t have any reason to know them beyond being the ‘men in the shadows,’ as they had always been called,” recalls Rev. Taylor.

Eventually, she asked Echeverría if he would help her meet other Mexican field and nursery workers in Pescadero. He became an ambassador to the farms and ranches where the “men alone” lived in isolation, far away from county services. He introduced her to his friends to engage in song and conversation. Those were the early days of La Sala, Puente’s oldest continuous program.

Initially, Echeverría helped Rev. Taylor distribute bike lights to the other workers – she had noticed the men on their bicycles, nearly invisible to cars as they rode home alone the highway after dark. Soon he was involved in other efforts, like visiting the homes of locals who were learning Spanish, acting as a conversation partner. He helped distribute clothing, blankets, beans, rice, phone cards, and welcome bags to newcomers.

“Wendy knew that we were here to work, and she would give us good advice,” he recalls. “She asked us how the farm owners would treat us. She told us, ‘If something happens you don’t like, you can tell me, and we will work together with the farmers and ranchers.”

Soon, Rev. Taylor founded Puente and started applying for its first grants and donations on behalf of the farm workers. She gave personal tours of the men’s housing units to foundation representatives, donors, and San Mateo County staff who were responsible for a part of the South Coast they had never even seen. Her staff grew to two, then three. When Puente inaugurated its Board of Directors, Echeverría was the very first Spanish-speaking, farm worker to sit as a board member.

“I’ve seen how Puente went from helping individuals to now having services for everybody here,” observes Echeverría. “Puente is helping people that have been here for a long time, and helping people that are coming in from Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador. It has made an impact.”

A New Organization for Changing Times

In May 2006, due in large part to the economic recession, three Pescadero organizations – Puente de la Costa Sur, North Street Community Resource Center, and South Coast Children’s Services – began conversations about how to better coordinate services on the South Coast. These conversations resulted in new agreements for coordinating work together as well as in the decision for Puente and North Street Community Resource Center to merge effective, April 1, 2007. The new organization, under the Puente umbrella, moved into North Street Community Resource Center spaces on the Pescadero Elementary School campus. Puente consolidated its Pescadero Creek Road Offices into the North Street location.

Growth spurt

When Taylor retired in December 2006, Kerry Lobel took over the reins and presided over the merger of Puente and North Street and an extraordinary period of growth for Puente, which went from 3 employees and a $185,127 budget in 2006 to a budget of $2.3 million with 27 full and part-time staff.

Today, Puente’s staff has grown to more than 30, 75% Latino and 65% bilingual. Nearly 300 volunteers step up every year to help crucial Puente programs and events run smoothly, including Backpack Distribution, Community Posada, Cafecito, tutoring and mentoring for the community.

For the last 12 years, close to 175 youth have gone through Puente’s Youth Leadership Development and Employment Program. The program enrolls nearly a third of the Pescadero high school population, connecting them to paid jobs and internships. Eight former Puente youth are now on staff.

Looking back, Rev. Taylor is happily astonished that the ministry she founded in 1998 has become a community resource center to the South Coast, in the broadest sense.

“This is way, way bigger than anything we could ever have thought of in the beginning. And, my gosh, how sustainable it has become, and how trusted it has become in the county and the community,” she says.

Puente will celebrate its landmark anniversary at a very special community gathering on Sunday, September 23rd, at TomKat Ranch in Pescadero. The event is free and open to the public. Civil rights legend Dolores Huerta will join Puente as a special guest at the event, which will honor the most important partners and individuals that have shaped the past 20 years of Puente.

“It’s evolved into a multi-generational, multi-pronged organization where people are involved not just as users, but as volunteers,” says Rita Mancera, Executive Director of Puente. “I’m also talking to people outside Puente who understand and support Puente’s work more and more. There used to be a perspective of, ‘Puente is not for me.’”

The community has gotten used to seeing familiar faces at Puente. Nine staff members have been with Puente for ten years or more. Mancera has been with Puente since it merged with North Street. She worked alongside former Puente Executive Director Kerry Lobel for a decade, from 2006 to 2016, before taking the reins when Lobel transitioned into the role of Strategic Projects Advisor.

Community-powered

One key to Puente’s growth has been its responsiveness to the needs of its communities – to be nimble and guided by the people who rely on its services. That strategy has yielded powerful results as participants not only ask for programs but have been stepping up to help run them.

Some examples include Puente’s Community Health Workers / Promotoras, a group of Spanish-speaking locals who act as a bridge between the community and Puente’s in-house medical clinic; Puente’s bike donation program and its free bike repair on farmers’ market days, courtesy of a team of committed volunteers; Day of the Dead/Día de los Muertos; the local teachers’ aides who work at Puente’s bilingual childcare cooperative, its board of advisors, all local parents, who make key decisions about the childcare center’s future; Puente’s Zumba teachers; its ESL and Spanish-language teachers… the list goes on.

Residents provide the engine that powers all those efforts, and more. The result is a cohort of locals who may not have been born in the U.S., but who feel like they belong.

“I think that sometimes we talk about people who feel unseen and unsafe. I think this has shifted a lot. I see more people that are proud of who there are. They can understand and take pride in the contributions they make. They know they’re here for a good reason and they’re more willing to fight for their right to stay here,” muses Mancera.

Rev. Taylor, who has since moved to Washington State, agrees. “Today it seems like there’s an opportunity, at least, to feel like everyone belongs. I don’t think there is that same level of fear as in the early days.”

Moving forward

None of this work would have been possible without the sustaining support of Puente’s partnerships, particularly with San Mateo County (SMC) and the La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District.

Puente continued providing extensive services for insured and uninsured residents including enrollment for health coverage, case management for participants with chronic illnesses, transportation and interpretation for medical appointments, dental screenings, cleanings and extractions at temporary clinics in Pescadero, vaccines and immunizations, and weekly medical appointments through the Coastside Medical Clinic based at Puente. Puente increased our preventive services through fitness classes like Zumba and exercise for adults 55+, ballet folklórico for children and adults, and soccer tournaments targeted to farmworkers and their peers. We also offered healthy cooking and nutrition classes and women’s health classes.

Puente’s behavioral health services team supported women’s empowerment through individual therapy, support groups and crisis intervention particularly around domestic violence. While demand for these services has increased, changed County priorities have led to reduced funding and greater stress on Puente as we work to fill the funding gaps.

The school district has collaborated with Puente on several initiatives to educate local adults about early childhood development and parent engagement.

Puente is also continuing work on a town planning process to identify the highest infrastructure and services needs in our community. Puente contracted with two consultants to facilitate the process and engage at least 200 residents starting this fall. As a result, the community will have a draft plan of shared priorities by summer of 2019.

Major sustained support will be needed – and not just from institutions and foundations – for Puente’s next two big campaigns. One is to solve the disastrous lack of affordable rental housing on the South Coast for farm workers, middle-income families, and anyone making less than $50,000 a year. This intractable issue has had serious trickle-down consequences for everyone – from unsafe, overcrowded apartments and trailers, to keeping farm workers trapped in low-paying jobs because their employers provide their housing.

In the last year alone, Puente examined the barriers to increasing affordable housing in the region and evaluated the feasibility of Puente playing a more active role in housing development. Puente conducted 80 hours of interviews with farmworkers, residents, property owners, partners, agencies and policymakers and researched and reviewed current federal, state and county housing regulations. Puente also organized 25 farm and nursery workers to participate in a region wide conversation about housing barriers and concerns. Puente advocated on behalf of farmworkers for lower rents, cancellation of evictions and supports low-income families with rental assistance as necessary.

Puente’s Childcare Cooperative, Sueños Unidos/United Dreams, launched in 2016, is now operating full time under the supervision of a highly qualified Early Childhood Education (ECE) Teacher. Because nearly 75% of the program expenses are coming from Puente’s general operating funds, Puente is working with an ECE facilities expert to design and make the necessary improvements to license the space. Licensing the childcare center will allow Puente to apply for state funding, ECE vouchers and establish a sliding scale for families, all needed for the long-term sustainability of the program. It will also enable us to increase the number of children in our care from 8 to 12. This does not address the larger issue – there are 20 children on the Coop waiting list.

Mancera is deeply proud of the Puente Youth program and its scholarship program, which helps send high school graduates to four-year colleges by matching them with anonymous donors who can help them pay for it. Most will be the first in their families to go to college.

“I see their astonished and relieved faces when we tell them, ‘Someone is going to help you with college, is going to support you, is going to write a check for you,” she says.

“We need more than ever the support of the community because the things we thought at some point were impossible are happening now,” says Mancera.

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